by Cris Anson
So he’d reined in his larcenous tendency and prudently decided to wait for the reading of the will. Those things would all be his, anyway. Even if she’d called the lawyer in the past couple of days directing him to change the will to include that poseur, there was no way she could have gotten to the man’s office to sign it. He knew that for a fact, because he did all her chauffeuring. And now she’d never have the chance. No way in hell would an alleged grandson take everything he’d worked years for, taking all her guff, kowtowing to her while she lorded her money over him.
It was all his. He deserved it.
He’d call her tomorrow, several times during the day, and leave increasingly apprehensive messages on her answering machine, and then finally call the police like a dutiful nephew to report a worrisome situation of an old woman not answering her telephone, and allow the police to break down the door to discover an unfortunate accident.
Oh yes, he’d bide his time and get everything that was due him.
And now he’d be able to forestall the shark. Because he’d have the whole megillah in a few weeks.
* * * * *
“It’s about time you woke up, sleepyhead.”
Fantine stretched and undulated like a satisfied cat. Bright sunlight seeped into the bedroom from the edges of the blinds. She turned to face Rolf, lying on his back, hands stacked behind his head, all gorgeous male with bed-hair and that strong jaw darkened by an emerging beard.
“While you’ve been sawing wood, I’ve been lying here wondering what you’d look like in leather.”
“You’re trying to make me forget that as my host, you’re supposed to offer me coffee first thing in the morning.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re really grouchy before you get a shot of caffeine.”
Chuckling, he grabbed a fistful of her silky hair and let it filter through his fingers. “I’ll be a good boy. You can use the bathroom while I’ll see if I can scrounge up some coffee grounds. I’m sure I have a supply somewhere, but I may have to turn the place upside down to find it.”
“Don’t even joke about coffee,” she said with a mock growl.
With another chuckle, Rolf sauntered out of the bedroom, unconcernedly nude. Fantine couldn’t help but admire the ebb and flow of his muscles, especially the glutes, as he moved. He did have a really fine ass. No wonder so many women wanted to sketch or paint him.
As she washed up and brushed her teeth, Fantine considered how she felt about his posing nude. Obviously, she couldn’t let herself be jealous—after all, it wasn’t like they were promised to each other. But even if they had been, she thought she’d feel like Magnus did about his Kat. Others could look but not touch.
It worked for her. Or, it would, if she had any claim on Rolf.
A shadow passed across her heart at that last thought. How would it be, she wondered, if she meant more to him than a good fuck and a liaison to his grandmother? If they made a mutual commitment to see where this visceral sexual connection would lead them? He acted the bad boy, but underneath the façade, Rolf displayed a vulnerability that called out to her. Not in a motherly way—hell no!—but to the idea that he’d allowed her inside his defenses.
Still, it was hard to quash the ships-passing-in-the-night metaphor in her mind.
After dressing in a scoop-neck tee and gored denim skirt, she followed the smell of fresh-brewed coffee to the kitchen. Rolf had toasted a pile of whole wheat bread slices and, still nude, was buttering them.
Gratefully Fantine picked up the pot on the counter and poured herself a cup of full-strength caffeine. “Looks like you were a little too energetic in packing your suitcase. You didn’t leave anything out for yourself.”
Rolf grunted. “Shows what you know. I was just being the considerate host, allowing you to take your time in the bathroom. I’ll be dressed and ready to go in two minutes. You just enjoy your breakfast.”
As he walked by where Fantine had seated herself, he did a little hip dance, making his semihard cock jiggle in her face.
“You know that I like the view, and I like the action, but at the moment I’m blissfully satisfied with what you’ve already given me and really need to conserve my energy for the drive back.”
Rolf bent down to drop a kiss on her nose. “It’s really hard to decide who I want to spend more time with—you or Nonie.”
And walked away, leaving that verbal bomb echoing in the air.
She wanted to spend more time with him too. Having the rest of the summer to spend with Rolf, getting to know his quirks, his likes and dislikes, sounded entirely too tempting. But it wasn’t in the cards. She couldn’t let it be. Take a deep breath, Fantine. And another, and another.
Giving herself a mental shake, Fantine reached for the plate of toast and munched through two slices before Rolf returned, shaved and dressed in snug jeans and black T-shirt with a Mustang logo emblazoned on his chest.
“Ready to go? I packed last night before we left for Soren’s.”
“Caught me flat-footed, did you? I’ll be back in a minute.”
As Fantine left the table, Rolf watched the unconsciously provocative sway of her ample hips. Nice, he thought. How did I ever want a seedling instead of a fully mature boxwood?
The knock on his door startled him. Who the hell would be visiting him in the morning?
“Rolf? You there? I heard voices.”
Kevin Maldonado. He must be visiting his grandmother again. Good thing the kid hadn’t knocked while they’d been making love, or he’d have gotten an education. Although he thought Kev was much more streetwise than any nine-year-old had a right to be. Resigned to the interruption, Rolf rose from the kitchen table and strolled through the living room.
“Hi, Kev,” he said as he opened the door.
Kevin looked around the shabby room. “Who was you talking to?”
“A friend. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothin’. Gramma don’t want me around, that’s all. I thought maybe you had some ice cream or somethin’.”
“I think there might be some pistachio in the freezer. Help yourself.”
He couldn’t help noticing how the kid’s eyes lit up before settling into their usual blank gaze. Rolf wondered how often—or what—Gramma fed the skinny kid. He poured the last of the coffee into his cup and watched as Kev loaded a chipped bowl with two scoops of the icy treat, a treat that Rolf kept handy for just such occasions.
“I’m ready,” Fantine sang out from the living room, punctuated by the soft thud of her overnight case hitting the floor by the entrance door.
Kevin’s head snapped up. “Who’s that?”
“Fantine? Come into the kitchen and meet my sometime neighbor.”
When she did, her eyes widened. Then her innate courtesy kicked in. “How do you do? I’m Fantine Mercier, a friend of Rolf’s.”
“You must eat a lot of ice cream.”
Obviously taken aback, Fantine responded, “Excuse me?”
Kevin eyed her from the fullness of her face to her abundant breasts to her ripe hips and curvy calves. “You’re pretty fat.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say to the pretty lady. She isn’t fat, she’s just nice and curvy. And squeezable.” Rolf held out his arms and Fantine walked into them. He nestled his head between her breasts and curved his arms around her lush hips. “See?” He turned his head and kissed her somewhere in the area of her diaphragm. “She’s just luckier than most people. She has enough.”
Kevin nodded once, as if he understood “enough” in its current context. And Rolf was sure he did—enough food, enough money so she wasn’t skinny like everyone in Kev’s family that Rolf had met, enough folks who loved her and worried about her.
With an aplomb that Rolf had to admire, Fantine offered her hand. “Let’s start again, shall we? Hi. I’m Fantine Mercier, a friend of Rolf’s.”
Suspicion warred with yearning on Kevin’s face. Finally his hand crept forward to grasp hers. “I’m Kevin. My Gramma says I’m not reall
y a Maldonado because my real dad is a drunken Irishman and my mom conned my dad into getting married ’cause she needed a name for me.”
“And your Gramma is…?”
“Downstairs. Rolf lives over top of her.”
Rolf felt Fantine’s gaze on him, as if wanting to ask a question or waiting for an explanation. “Kev’s dad is Gramma’s son. Gramma takes him in out of Christian duty, not out of any perceived blood responsibility.”
“They ain’t divorced, see, but they live separate,” Kevin explained. “Dad works nights. I stay with Gramma when Mom’s got an overnight date, or else I’d be sleeping on the porch.”
Fantine cleared her throat. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Kevin. Why don’t you finish your ice cream before it melts?”
As if he’d forgotten the treat, the kid spun around, grabbed his bowl and began stuffing his face with ice cream. Before long he was licking the inside of the bowl.
Rolf had washed out the coffeepot and now set it on the drainboard. “Well, Kev, I’m glad you stopped by, but Fantine and I have some business to attend to. We’ll be gone a few days. Next time you can visit with Fantine and me longer, okay?”
A grudging “Okay” and Kev was ushered to the door but dragged his feet.
“Uh, could I, uh, do that squeezable thing?”
“Oh Kevin, of course you can! Come here,” Fantine said, flinging her arms wide. The youngster melted into her embrace and closed his hungry eyes.
Across the tufts of carrot-red hair, Fantine met Rolf’s gaze. And he knew she understood why he put up with mouthy, cocky, skinny Kevin Maldonado.
As she looked around to see if she’d packed everything, Fantine mulled over what she’d just seen. This was a new side of Rolf, one he apparently kept hidden. She liked it. Liked it a lot. There was more to him than just the gigolo he pretended to be. She’d have to strengthen the shield around her heart. But since she’d already let him in, she wasn’t sure whether the shield should keep him out or in.
Walking back to the living room, she pulled out her cell phone and checked for messages. There was one that made her blood freeze. She castigated herself for turning the phone off when they’d gone to bed.
“Ms. Mercier? This is Life Monitor Systems. Ms. Dwyer activated her call button at 4:02 this morning but didn’t answer the phone when our Security Center called back. This is to let you know that we’ve alerted the EMT squad listed in Ms. Dwyer’s records to check on her. If you’re nearby and can come to her home, you’ll probably see an ambulance there.”
“Nonie! Oh my God!” Fantine exclaimed, her heart pounding like a tom-tom. “I’ve got to call them to find out what happened. Crap. And we’re more than two hours away.”
Rolf had set down his suitcase and now stood behind her, his big hands steady on her shoulders. “Whatever it is, we’re in it together. We both love Nonie and want to help her.”
With shaking fingers she depressed the call-back button and waited with a huge lump in her throat for someone to answer. She had no idea what Life Monitor Systems was, but the message had scared the hell out of her.
“Life Monitor Systems, may I help you?”
“This is Fantine Mercier. You got an emergency call from Rosalie Dwyer? How is she? What happened?”
Fantine felt herself being eased sideways until her calf hit the sofa. Gentle pressure nudged her down into the cushion.
“Apparently she fell down the steps in her home. The EMTs stabilized her and took her to Mercy Medical Center.”
“How badly was she hurt?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Mercier, EMTs are prohibited from reporting back to us due to HIPAA regulations. You know, government red tape. You’ll have to call the hospital yourself, and unless Ms. Dwyer has put your name on the approved list, they won’t be able to give out any information on the phone.”
Fantine swore silently. “I understand. Thank you.”
Disconnecting, she turned into Rolf’s arms. “Oh Rolf, she’s so fragile. Why would she have been up at four o’clock in the morning? She couldn’t have been looking for the bathroom. She has a private one in her suite. I can’t believe she was sleepwalking. She’s never ever done that.”
“We’ll find out. Listen. You’re probably not in any emotional shape to be driving a couple of hours. We won’t worry about getting my Mustang up there. How about if I drive your Prius, so you’ll be able to make any phone calls you need to. And we’ll be together and you can fill me in on everything.”
“Yes. Of course. But hurry. We have to get to her.”
And Fantine wouldn’t allow herself to think about the fact that she and Rolf had been fucking like rabbits while Nonie was lying on the floor of her home, injured and in pain. And alone.
Chapter Eleven
Good God, Rolf thought, she looked like she was five minutes from death. He had to force himself to walk up to one of the four hospital beds, each surrounded by monitors and machines and tubes pulsing and hissing. He’d never even been in a hospital before, never mind an intensive care unit.
He bent over the fragile husk of a woman who looked lost under the bleached white sheets, her neck and half her skull in a cast of sorts, IV lines in both arms, a tube delivering oxygen to her nostrils, machines beeping softly all around her.
“Rosalie?” he whispered. “Uh, Nonie? It’s Rolf. Your grandson. I’m here. They’re only letting in one person at a time, but Fantine is right outside your room. She’ll be coming in to visit you real soon.”
“Take her hand,” said the motherly looking nurse in blue scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck and thick-soled shoes on her feet. She checked a gauge and made a notation on her chart. “She should have skin-to-skin contact as much as possible.”
He did, noting that her tiny, birdlike hand almost got swallowed up in his large one. “Nonie, you have to get better. I want to know all about Randolph.” He cleared his throat. “About my—my father.”
Almost unconsciously, he began stroking her slender forearm with his free hand, running a finger lightly over the parchment skin. “I want to know how they…” he cleared his throat. “How he met my mom, uh, that’s Alana, and everything else you might know. So really, you have to wake up. Okay? Can you do that for me? Can you maybe squeeze my hand to let me know that you’re going to try? C’mon, you’ve got to try. I want us to get to know each other better. Please.”
He kept talking to her, talking and stroking her arm. He caressed her cheek with a finger, drew a stray lock of white hair away from her brow. At one point he thought he felt one of her arthritic fingers move, as if she was trying to squeeze his hand to say she heard him. He clung to that thought, but nothing further happened and he had to admit that maybe it had been wishful thinking on his part.
Because nothing moved except the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest.
* * * * *
“Is everything all right?” Fantine whispered in a frightened voice as she stood in the ICU doorway frantically beckoning to the nurse who had been fussing at Nonie’s machines.
“She’s breathing on her own,” the nurse said as she met Fantine at the doorway. “She’s old and her bones are brittle. But her heartbeat is good and she’s fighting like crazy.”
A wan smile was Fantine’s only response. Nonie couldn’t die just yet. She couldn’t! Fate wouldn’t be that cruel to a woman who had just found something to live for.
“It’s been fifteen minutes and he’s still in there. The other nurse told me we were only allowed five minutes. I mean, I’m happy that she’s got Rolf at her side, but he looks devastated. Are you sure she’s not getting worse?”
The nurse gave her a warm smile. “He must be doing something right, because her vital signs have gotten stronger. They’ve stabilized a bit. I think subconsciously she knows he’s here, and it’s helping her. So I let him stay more than the regulation five minutes. But still, I think it’s time.”
A minute later the nurse ushered Rolf back out to the hall.
Fantine’s composure almost deserted her at the heartbreaking look on his face. She wanted to rush inside the ICU and scoop up Nonie in a big hug, to tell her everything would be fine, that she had lots of time yet to get to know her grandson. She wanted to see for herself that Nonie was healing, was comfortable and not in pain.
She wanted Santa Claus to be real too.
What she wanted most of all, though, was a hug of her own. Wordlessly she went to Rolf and, just as wordlessly, he opened his arms and she fell into them. His warmth, his strong embrace, gave her the strength to keep her emotions in check. “How is she?”
His voice trembled. “I don’t know. She hasn’t moved, not even her eyeballs. Looks like she’s barely breathing.”
“The nurse said her vital signs got stronger while you were talking to her.”
He pulled back to look into her eyes. “Then shouldn’t we be there the whole hour?”
They turned to the gatekeeper seated behind the curved nurses’ station, monitoring the computer screens. “By and large, the five-minute rule benefits the patients,” said the nurse, a pert young woman with soft gray eyes, “but we do have some leeway. Why don’t you get a bite to eat at the cafeteria? When you come back, we’ll see what we can arrange.”
“That’s the last thing I’m thinking about,” Fantine replied, brushing off the suggestion with a wave of her hand.
“How about some coffee?” Rolf asked her. “Or do you only have this manic need in the morning?”
That brought a tiny smile to her lips. She let her gaze roam over his face. Tiny lines had appeared between his thick brows. Pain resided in his brown eyes and smudges darkened the skin below them. He was a coffeeholic too, she remembered, and probably needed the caffeine jolt as much as she did.
“Yeah, coffee would be good.” She turned to the nurse. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
* * * * *
When they returned to ICU, a different nurse was on duty. The man was tall and muscular, with smooth mocha skin and the melodic lilt of the Caribbean in his voice. Fantine introduced herself and Rolf to the nurse, Leon Harbin. Rolf headed right into ICU.
